5 Feet of Fury

‘Goodbar! The Musical’ — no, I’m not kidding

Bruce Chadwick writes:

The real trouble with Goodbar is that it ignores the history that made the murder of Roseann Quinn such a media and movie attraction.  New York was practically out of control in the 1970s.  It had one of the highest murder rates in the world, late-night comics joked about its crime sprees, the mob ran amuck, and people were afraid to drive through certain parts of the metropolis. The whole city seemed to be a war zone. The killing of Roseann brought all of that to a criminal boil.  How bad would things get?  People wondered. 

They would get so bad that innocent school teachers would be stabbed to death in their own bedrooms.  On top of that, the history of the bar scene in New York had deteriorated badly and Roseann’s reported sexual manhunting in bars showcased that, too.